---
title: "Two girls, rain and a crossing of the Jeseníky Mountains"
description: "A year ago we set off on the Jeseníky crossing for the first time. This crossing ticks everything we need: transport access, sleeping in bivouacs and beautiful nature."
canonical_url: "https://gramino.com/blog/two-girls-rain-and-the-jeseniky-crossing"
last_updated: "2020-07-22"
---

# Two girls, rain and a crossing of the Jeseníky Mountains

Authors: Michaela Czempková

Date: 2020-07-22

A year ago we set off on the Jeseníky crossing for the first time. This crossing ticks everything we need: transport access, sleeping in bivouacs and beautiful nature.

As a proper Prague girl who loves escaping to the mountains, I grew up on the Jizera Mountains and the Krkonoše. But climbing Sněžka or walking through the picturesque Jizerka trail gets old after a while, so my mountain-loving partner in crime Anežka and I started wondering where to head on our next unknown adventure. A year ago we set off on the Jeseníky crossing for the first time. This crossing ticks everything we need: good transport access, the option to sleep in bivouacs, and beautiful nature. We loved it so much that this year, in the spirit of celebrating personal milestones, we headed back again.

- **Route length:** 46 km
- **Cumulative elevation gain:** 1,555 m

I had just finished university and Anežka had just graduated high school. The trek was an important part of kicking off summer and celebrating our freedom, so after all the necessary celebrating in the city, we couldn't wait to step off the train in Ramzová and start scrambling up Šerák. Except the weather wasn't on our side. The day before we left, Anežka calls me all excited about heading to "the Jeseníky" again, but *yr.no* is forecasting insane rain for our second day on the trail. Apparently worse than the time "they didn't leave the tent under Mont Blanc for a full 24 hours." Still, we both agreed to the trek across the Moravian mountains and packed accordingly – waterproof jackets and plenty of chocolate.

## Day 1

The journey went smoothly. Anežka surprises me at the station with a chilled can of Braník (the beer of the poor and of students). Since it's classic summer mugginess, I don't hesitate and happily crack the can open as we leave Prague. By 5pm we're in Ramzová, with 700 meters of elevation gain and 10 km ahead of us to today's bivouac at Vřesové studánky. When we arrive, we still have an hour of daylight to spare. We can see we won't be alone at the spring. We meet a group of four from Brno who packed plenty of wine and beer into their backpacks. During the conversation we find out the Brno crew set off without much preparation. They basically only learned about the incoming heavy rain from us. The climb wore us out more than our new neighbors, so we pull out our sleeping pads and sleeping bags and turn in early. We happily crawl into our Cumulus bags – me into the [Lite Line 400](/p/cumulus-lite-line-400), and Anežka into the lighter, less warm [Lite Line 300](/p/cumulus-lite-line-300). It's her first time in a Cumulus. I've told her enough about this down bag that we both know tonight will be free of frozen toes.

## Day 2

Sometime around 3am I'm woken up by insane bursts of rain. I tell myself it'll probably clear up by morning. It didn't. The rest of the bivouac crowd wakes up sometime around 9am. There's no rush when it's pouring like that outside. We cook up some tea and porridge and slowly work out in our heads how we'll tackle today's ridge walk. By around 10am, watching from the dry shelter, the rain doesn't seem quite so bad anymore. We say goodbye to the Brno crew and wish each other good weather. Gore-Tex jackets on, and the most important thing – sleeping bag and warm clothes packed in plastic bags. Time to get moving.

We have 20 km ahead of us in conditions you wouldn't send a dog out in. We follow the red trail markers. From last year we know well what's coming. We go over Červenohorské sedlo, Malý Jezerník and the Švýcárna hut, where we're already wringing out our jackets and ourselves. Three hours of relentless rain had to be made up for with two hours of drying out in the empty hut.

At 5pm it finally stops pouring, so we head onward with soggy feet. We wave at Praděd, hiding from us in the clouds. We skip the extra kilometer detour and continue on to Ovčárna. We take shelter under a roof again and lament over fried cheese where we'll sleep tonight. Two bivouacs are in play – one open with a roof, the other near Jelení studánka, pretty similar to tonight's. 7pm rolls around and we head back out. It's not quite as rough as it was this morning. At the junction we spontaneously change our minds about where to sleep. We still have 6 km ahead of us to a bivouac better suited to the weather conditions. We walk across a gorgeous meadow around Vysoká Hole. I know from last year how gorgeous it is. Right now there's just fog ahead of us and fog behind us. It's windy, really windy, which might be worse than the morning rain. These evening hours, when a sudden magical calm settles over nature, either thrill me completely or spook me a little. Today it's more the latter.

By the time we reach the bivouac, only a few minutes are left before sunset. We share the shelter again. I had no idea how many people would want to head into the mountains together in this weather, on a weekday no less. No matter, we're grateful for the dry ground. We make tea and treat ourselves to a little gastro delicacy – our tried-and-tested recipe of Camembert grilled on the gas stove. Happily, we crawl into our dry, warm sleeping bags on the hard ground and hope for better weather.

## Day 3

I wake up at 6am. I accepted my role as "first one up" long ago, so I head out into the sunshine. Yes, sunshine(!), so bright I nearly go blind. I stretch and take a walk across the gorgeous mountain meadow around Jelení studánka.

An hour later Anežka wakes up, so we grab all our things and go "sort ourselves out" outside so we don't wake the others. We dry out yesterday's wet gear so our boots aren't squelching first thing in the morning. We set off in an interesting combination of clothing – a light down jacket and shorts, since we're expecting good weather, though it isn't quite there yet. We walk beautiful little paths to Františkova myslivna, where we have breakfast and watch the opposite ridge with Praděd still hiding from view. Only once it appears do we continue on down the trail.

We take an unmarked path to this year's new addition to the trek – the Dlouhé stráně reservoir. We know from photos what's waiting for us, but we're still speechless when we suddenly find ourselves at the top. Neither of us can quite grasp how something like this ended up here. We walk all the way around the reservoir, take photos, look out at the horizon. The clouds take on the shape of little Simpsons-style puffs, and we finally see the Jeseníky peaks.

All that's left now is lunch at the snack bar by the reservoir and soaking up that "hiker trash" mood. Sitting on our sleeping pads we eat (again) Camembert, grilled this time, drying out every component of our footwear around us – socks, insoles, shoes. On the way to the reservoir we waded through a small body of water ourselves, so not a single shoelace stayed dry. Luckily we chose lightweight trail running shoes for the crossing, so it doesn't take long.

Satisfied with food, views and sunshine, we start heading down into the valley. Our train leaves in 2 hours, so we keep a steady pace and reach it 5 minutes before departure. Completely wrecked from the steep descent down the ski slope, we collapse onto the train seats and give each other a high five. So we made it through the Jeseníky again this year, and it looks like we're starting to build a little tradition. We put our rain gear – and above all our morale – to the test. I think we could handle just about anything now.

Article by: **Míša Procházková**

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